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Subscribe to RSSGlenn Kessler of The Washington Post's Fact Checker column demolishes the claim that President Obama skips nearly half of his daily intelligence briefings. The claim has been made in anti-Obama ads funded by the super PAC American Crossroads.
The Post's conclusion: One can't skip briefings that aren't scheduled.
"As it turns out, no president does it the exact same way," Kessler writes. "Under the standards of this ad, Republican icon Ronald Reagan skipped his intelligence briefings 99 percent of the time."
Speaking of accountability
The claim about Obama's intelligence briefings originated with a group called The Government Accountability Institute. Its president, Peter Schweizer, is a former speechwriting consultant to President George W. Bush and a former foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin.
Despite the claim regularly made in Schweizer's biography, he's never been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is not listed on the Pulitzer Prizes list of nominees. The false claim was made in Schweizer's bio on the Government Accountability Institute website until we asked when he was a nominee. The text was then changed to say his work was entered in the Pulitzers, a status anyone can achieve for $50. Schweizer declined to respond to questions about this false claim.
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Pretty standard fare for both sides of the aisle, huh? Try and take care of an ailing parent or loved one without putting yourseld in the poorhouse. Try and get a credit line to grow your business. Try and get some insider info to make a little extra bread. I think I may just run for office; not like my skeletons could be any worse than 'them.' Of course, could cause some birther issues as my mom was from Canada and I knew someone that smoked grass (and inhaled).
It seems that if it weren't for lies and intentionally misleading and out of context information, the Republican Party would be completely silenced. What pack of liars.
Kinda like the Democrats, huh....that's politics.
No it's not kinda like the democrats. Not 100% truth on the dem side, but it is above the 10% (generously) we can give the republicans
They are the RepubliCONS. The CON-men. The RE-peat-the-LIE-to-the-PUBLIC-ans. The last real Republican President was Dwight Eisenhower. The rest were, and are, a bunch of snake-oil salesmen and grifters. Dwight was good enough to warn us about those who would seek or achieve "UNDUE" influence over our political process. We have ignored his warning at our own peril.
The Republican Party are bunch of dinosaurs that not only need to be dragged into the 21St Century.. they need to grasp the fact that if you tell a lie, expect the internet age to debunk it.. because more people have more access to more info and facts than any other time in human history.
Romneys own comment: "This campaign will not be run by fact checkers" what kind of idiot is this guy?? Shows himself to be a total fool. Glad to see that this lie flying around has been debunked... Good Job WP.
There are facts and then there are "facts". You can't even say what proof positive the WP found to debunk the claim. They just spin it and you believe it. Having the WP go to bat for Obama is expected. I'm surprised a lot of these news articles don't end with, "I'm Barrack Obama, and I approve this article." LOL!
Since any president receives written reports every morning and as article notes there's no set schedule as to when or if a president requires meeting with anyone about the reports that pretty much makes it bogus. As it notes under the same guide lines Reagan would have been accused of missing 99% of meetings. Just because Bush's routine was daily meetings doesn't mean Obama's required to do the same.
Bush had daily meetings because he was too stupid to read the reports on a page, so he had Barney the dinosaur spell things out for him every day in person.
Obama can look at the briefing reports and get all he needs to know and move on to more productive parts of his day.
Good God man, has the CIA been in touch with you? You must have ESP to have as much insight as you do. Especially the part where Obama uses his xray vision to see everything simultaneously on these briefing pages.
Good to know I can submit a writing of my work for $50 to Pulitzers and then say "I was a nominee for a Pulitzer prize!" what an idiot!! Yes, I wish they would check before the send it to print!! Idiot!
Can't focus on anything but that statement? He's got nothing on Biden for padding accomplishments. The crux of the article was on Obama's security meeting attendance. Seems like there are those trying to shift the focus to a Pulitzer comment. The WP offered nothing in the way of detailed proof that the allegations were false. More or less a "we say its that way..just trust us." What does saying every president does it different prove? What specifically do they do differently? Attend meetings? In what way, specifically? They don't say. Just spinning it. What, specifically, would their way of figuring it result in Reagan missing 99% of his meetings? They don't say and you don't care. You just want to believe what you want, just like Republicans do.
Actually, the Post story does lay out exactly how presidents do it differently, and points out that President Reagan didn't hold such briefings. You don't seem to have read the Post story.
@ Bill Dedman - Would you agree that a lot of the things Obama is attacked for were done by most presidents? I see a lot of people demonizing him for taking vacations and doing talk show interviews, but I remember most presidents having to do public appearance events too. Do you think he's judged differently than past presidents?
The "standard" would be an every day daily security briefing. Reagan "missed" 99% of them because they weren't scheduled for him, they were scheduled for GHW Bush. If Obama is only briefed every other day, he theoretically "misses" half of the briefing opportunities. Hence the baseless allegation.
Speech writing consultant to G.W. Bush.... Pulitzer prize nominee... All sounds good until it has to be proven. Dang, I think I'll write a biography of my own. I wonder what I can make up to compete with these fabrications so I can get a little higher on the seller list.
"a former foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin" Huh? Maybe he's the one that can see Russia from his home.
The Republican Party must have a very, very low opinion of the education/intelligence of the American people! Of course, there is cause for that - forgetting that 2 months before the 2008 election, then president George W Bush said there was no problem with the economy ---- HUH??? The Republicans have blocked much of the efforts of the Obama administration by voting against every issue brought up so they can point to the inability of our current President. In my opinion, the Republican party conducts itself like a bunch of thugs! Being critical of every Democrat effort bur they have no solutions for the problems and this has been their CONSISTENT approach for the past 4 years. At one time, I admired the guts of John McCain until he knuckled under to the heavy weights in the Republican Party. Oh, and another thing, folks, a party who touts pro-life but lied to us and got us into a war by deception. I guess adult lives do not matter to them. Now they have a movement to exclude people from voting!!!! What a bunch of underhanded, deceitful, lying, and truth manipulating non-Americans.
Well, Joe, sounds like your last sentence fits you to a "t"...
millknee - all of your comments resemble "no you're the liar!" with no facts to back it up. This is not how politics work. You listen, respond, we listen, we respond, etc but youre not providing any new material for us to gain any new understanding of the article. In fact, I don't even think you read the article. What are you doing on a political blog with this little substance?
I would question any "Fact Checker" results from an obviously liberal rag like the WP. Do you think they even try to check facts on any Obama campaign claims against Romney? Of course not! They only exist to parry accusations directed at their man, Obama. Much of the time, the facts checked out by fact checkers aren't facts at all...on both sides of the fence.
LOL there were fact checkers at the DNC too. You're trying to create a conspiracy against Republicans when there isn't one. Both were equally fact checked.
@ Joe & millktoast: ... that's why I refer to them as rethugliKKKLANs, among other reasons. They are certainly not the "Eisenhower Republicans" like my Dad and I used to be. Under Ike we had about a 90% tax on the richest and we still had a thriving, prosperous middle class and vibrant unions that looked out for the safety and security of workers -- and we still had a rich class, and CEOs that made a respectable salary about 30 times that of the average worker -- not obscene 400 times that of the average worker it has mushroomed into... The latter is a travesty! What a waste of dollars! Oh, and every time I present my research to counter some reich-wing claim and cite FactCheck, Snopes, Crooks&Liars and several other aids to those interested in truth, the reich-winger ALWAYS changes the subject, never acknowledging or thanking me for doing their research for them. Reich-wingers are not interested in the truth. Period. And that's the truth.
oh, and we had companies and corporations that were just that, and everyone knew they weren't persons or people, they were just companies and corporations.
"Its president, Peter Schweizer, is a former speechwriting consultant to President George W. Bush and a former foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin."
Which pretty much sums up why he's brain dead. Foreign policy advisor to Sarah Palin? Far easier to teach a pig to sing AND dance.
Which pretty much sums up why he's brain dead. Foreign policy adviser to Sarah Palin? Far easier to teach a pig to sing AND dance.
I would take the job, of training pigs. But would not attempt to teach Sarah. That would be impossible!